Original subtitles

This week on Vice:

Trump's move in Israel

sparks outrage across the Middle East.

We're in Gaza on the Israeli border.

This is the day of rage.

There are thousands of young Palestinians

protesting against Trump's announcement.

And then, the rise of mass surveillance in China.

You cross the street against the light,

cameras will take a picture of your face

and then post it up there to embarrass you.

Right now, it's time to change.

In season two, we reported a story about how crucial Israel is

to the American evangelical community.

Many evangelicals strongly believe

that Israel and, more specifically, Jerusalem

must be completely controlled by the Jewish people

in order to trigger the Second Coming of Christ.

He is going to defeat the Antichrist,

and we are going to crown Jesus Christ

as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Now, 80 percent of white evangelical voters

supported Donald Trump in the 2016 election.

In return, President Trump has given his evangelical base

exactly what they wanted.

It is time to officially recognize

Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Now, this announcement sparked controversy

and outrage around the world,

but was especially contentious...

... between Israel and Palestine.

So, we sent Gianna Toboni to see the real-world consequences

of the president's actions.

Since Trump's announcement,

Hamas and some of the other factions...

you can see their flags behind me...

have called for a day of rage,

so this rally is kicking that off right now.

This protest was just one of many

that erupted across Israel and Palestine.

You can hear Israeli gunshots coming over.

A couple of kids have already been taken away in ambulances.

Can you explain what happened?

Since Trump's announcement,

more than 40 Palestinians

and four Israelis have been killed.

Congress ordered the embassy to be relocated back in 1995.

Every President since then

has issued waivers delaying the move.

But President Trump had promised not to,

and conservative Israelis were thrilled.

While most of the world saw Trump's signing

of the order as provoking a conflict,

Prime Minister Netanyahu said

it would actually defuse one.

I share President Trump's commitment

to advancing peace between Israel and all of our neighbors,

including the Palestinians.

We spoke to Emmanuel Nahshon,

a spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry,

who told us why the government

is a hundred percent in support of the move.

Did the government know that this was coming?

Had you been talking to them beforehand?

Had you been asking them to do this?

We encouraged the American administration to do it

because we believed that it was something very positive.

This announcement actually should have taken place

many, many years ago.

Jerusalem has been our capital since 1948.

That's almost 70 years,

and I think that it's good and important

that the president of the most important country in the world

should actually acknowledge and recognize that this is our capital.

Not surprisingly, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas

is strongly objecting to Trump's move.

Abbas is president of the Palestinian Authority

and head of the Fatah party,

but his grip on power is weakening.

Dr. Hanan Ashrawi is a long-time Palestinian leader

who's been instrumental in the peace process

for more than 30 years.

How significant is President Trump's recognition

of Jerusalem as Israel's capital?

This recognition by President Trump represents to us

the epitome of irresponsibility, recklessness,

and a position that has become a game-changer in the whole region.

He has undermined the stability and security,

not just of Palestine, but of the region as a whole

by provoking people's sentiments, people's feelings.

It has made the chances of peace much more difficult.

That's because for centuries, Jerusalem has been

a holy city for three of the world's major religions.

We're on a rooftop in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Right in front of me, you see this gold dome.

That's what Muslims refer to as Al Aqsa Mosque,

and what Jews refer to as Temple Mount.

Muslims say that that's where Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven.

And then you look right over here, and there are a series of churches.

And this church has the big gold cross on the top.

That's where Christians say Jesus resurrected.

Different religious communities

have been coexisting here for centuries,

which is part of why Trump's decision is

so controversial not only here, but around the world.

Trump's move has made the peace process nearly impossible.

But efforts have been faltering for years,

in part due to divisions between rival Palestinian parties...

the more moderate Fatah and the more hardline Hamas.

With the failure of the peace process to deliver,

Hamas became stronger.

Now it demands to have a greater role.

Who is Fatah? Who is Hamas?

Fatah is the oldest party.

It started in the '60s.

It became the backbone

of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Hamas is a newcomer.

Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.

But Hamas resorted to violence

after it won, of course, elections.

There were difficulties relinquishing power,

and in Gaza, Hamas took over all the security offices by violence.

This rift has really weakened us.

Right now, this is a very crucial point.

Since this bloody conflict,

Hamas has been largely confined to Gaza by Israeli forces,

while Fatah controls the remaining Palestinian territories.

We're in Gaza City.

This is the 30th anniversary of Hamas.

This party is incredibly popular.

You look around, there are hundreds of thousands of people,

many of them waving green Hamas flags.

People are very clearly not happy with Trump's latest move.

Why do you support Hamas?

We got a bunch of kids in military uniforms

carrying fake guns and a few flags.

You know, it's... it's a family affair.

Can you tell me about your kids' outfits?

Hamas is no stranger to military force.

In their 30-year history, they've gone to war

three times with Israel in Gaza,

most recently in 2014.

The US considers Hamas to be a terrorist organization.

The group uses tunnels to smuggle weapons into Israel,

and it's launched suicide bombings

and rocket attacks on Israeli targets.

After the embassy announcement,

rockets fired out of Gaza led

to Israeli air strikes that killed two Gazans.

Mahmoud Al-Zahar is one of the original founders of Hamas

and remains a senior figure within the organization.

Just a few days ago,

you said that "Hamas is here to prove to the whole world

"that resistance is our only option,

and we will continue until we reach Al Aqsa Mosque,"

which of course is in Jerusalem.

But realistically, how do you do it?

I mean, there are massive concrete walls

guarded by very powerful Israeli Defense Forces.

What is the relationship right now between Hamas and Fatah?

That pro-resistance mentality

is starting to rip Palestinians apart,

and the friction has intensified

as the nearly two million Palestinians

living in Gaza are physically locked in

by closed borders.

Meaning civilians in Gaza

often can't get the necessities

and medical care they need.

What will happen with your health if you aren't able

to get out of Gaza to get that taken care of?

Tensions have been growing as the PA has been leveraging

the power they have over Gaza's resources against the people there.

As Palestine's deepening political divisions

increasingly impact daily life,

the people there are desperate for reconciliation.

How would your life change if there was a true reconciliation

between Hamas and Fatah?

But despite ongoing negotiations

between Palestine's political factions,

the acrimony only appears to be increasing.

In fact, in March of 2018,

Hamas allegedly attempted to assassinate Prime Minister Hamdallah,

and the group remain resolute in its stand

against both Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

One of the terms of the reconciliation

is that Hamas put down their weapons.

No, no. Is... is that something you would ever consider?

Although they remain divided, Palestinians are united

in opposing Israel's complete control of Jerusalem.

As support for the two sparring parties is dropping,

support for armed resistance is rising.

The ramifications are enormous,

and the consequences will have a ripple effect

within the region and beyond.

Not only does it inflame sentiments,

but it really provokes people,

uh, to take action.

In our modern age, mass surveillance

is now becoming the norm.

From local police using innovations in audio and video technology

to track criminal activities,

to more clandestine methods used to monitor

the communication, movement, and lifestyle habits,

of everyday citizens.

Every part of a private life today

is found on someone's phone.

We used to say man's home is his castle.

Today, a man's phone is his castle.

New advances in facial recognition technology

are being paired with artificial intelligence

and machine learning, so that today,

cameras can not only immediately identify people

with remarkable precision,

but also log and track this data.

Elle Reeve traveled to China to see

how this new technology is already being deployed

and the unintended, or in some cases, intended consequences

it might have for humanity going forward.

China has the largest video surveillance network

in the world and plans to expand it

to more than 600 million cameras over the next two years.

With the rise in facial recognition and artificial intelligence,

it feels more like someone is watching all those cameras at all times.

Hi, I'm Elle, I'm in China,

and I just got busted for jaywalking

with facial recognition technology.

Stations like this one are part of a new plan by the Chinese government

to publicly shame citizens caught breaking the law.

If you cross the street against the light,

cameras with facial recognition technology

will take a picture of your face,

cross-reference it with your government ID,

and then post it up there to embarrass you.

But China isn't embracing facial recognition just to catch jaywalkers.

The technology is starting to appear

just about anywhere you can imagine.

It helps make menu recommendations at your local fast-food spot.

You can also pay for your food with your face.

It even curbs the waste of toilet paper at public bathrooms.

My gift.

This is all I get for the next nine minutes.

Then I come back again and I try to get more?

Chinese tech companies are now at the cutting edge

of developing new and sophisticated ways to do video analysis.

Right now we're going to SenseTime,

one of the biggest companies involved in developing that technology.

Oh, that's me.

So you know when someone's late?

Yes!

But despite all the goofy applications we were first shown,

much of the tech SenseTime is developing

has serious real-world implications.

So it can track suspicious activity within a large crowd.

Are you ever bothered by having no anonymity

because there are cameras watching all the time?

But the reach of this technology

goes way beyond public areas

and increasingly infiltrates private spaces as well.

We're going into a government housing complex.

Instead of doormen, they have security cameras

with facial recognition technology,

and we're gonna go see how it works.

Ah.

This is the number of visitors,

this is all of the residents,

and this is our most popular person with 142.

How much more is your system doing that you're not allowed to show us?

In China, there are few protections

limiting how much information the government can collect

about its 1.4 billion citizens.

Everyone over the age of 16 is required to have

an official state-issued ID card

that the government now wants to use

to centralize all that information.

And China is investing heavily in tech companies

to help transform that government data

into a virtually omniscient surveillance network.

One of those companies is Megvii

It recently received a capital investment

of nearly half a billion dollars,

part of which is from a state-run VC fund.

But the name chosen for its premiere piece of technology

is a bit of a tell.

Skynet?

- Yes. - What is that?

Uh-huh.

So, okay, in The Terminator, Skynet is evil,

- rains down death from the sky. - Yeah.

But in China, Skynet is good.

So, how do you think your facial recognition technology

will change China?

So, when it looks out onto a crowd,

it's tracking all these faces,

and it's cross-checking those faces against what?

And how many fugitives have been apprehended through this system?

Wow.

In one year? Wow.

So, what you're working on now already seems like sci-fi.

What do you think the future will look like in, like, five years?

But that's like a horror show.

If you like spit gum on the sidewalk...

And your points will go down?

But that future isn't too far away.

Now China's government is testing

a new social credit score system

which would rank its citizens based on their online behavior.

While it won't fully roll out until 2020,

starting this year, China will ban people with a bad score

from booking flights and train rides.

We spoke with a lawyer who represents clients

considered to be untrustworthy by the communist government

about what this could mean for the future of China.

What are the risks of this kind of program?

What do you think of the government's argument

that a social credit system will create a meritocratic society?

But China isn't the only place experimenting

with facial recognition applications.

An airport in the Middle East is already planning

face-scanning aquariums at security checkpoints.

In Europe, state-sanctioned and private initiatives

are testing this technology in multiple locations,

from train stations to online classes.

And in the US, private companies are investing millions

to secure government contracts,

which could make machine learning and image recognition

a regular part of police work.

Law professor Andrew Guthrie Ferguson

is a leading expert on big data policing.

He spoke to us about the ramifications

that these technologies could present.

When you look at China's system of facial recognition

and video surveillance, what do you see?

I see the future and it scares me.

If you have the capability to identify people and patterns,

and you can show association about where you go

and why you're going there,

it really will change the relationship

between citizens and their governments.

In China, the government has heavily invested in these companies

developing facial recognition technology.

In the US, it's still more in the private sector.

Can you explain the difference?

So, much of the story of big data policing

has been small startup companies

or even sometimes the big tech companies

that are pushing police to use new technologies.

One of the open questions is, "Who owns this data?"

Take police body cams, right?

Right now, there is sort of an arms race

of people trying to sell police body cameras

to police all across America.

All of that data from all of those officers

is actually really valuable

for other non-law enforcement purposes.

You're really capturing patterns of society.

And if the private companies can use that data for other things,

even sell it for other reasons, they're gonna wanna profit.

Part of the reason why we've seen this move toward big data policing,

is because it sounds like an objective move

to sort of turn the page from some of the racial tension

we've seen after Ferguson

and after Baltimore, after Staten island,

to something that sounds more objective.

"Don't worry. This is data-driven."

The problem is, the data comes from us.

And if you're not cautious about how you're collecting

that information and then using it,

you're just gonna reify the same biases.

So, how slippery is the slope we're standing on?

How quickly could this be implemented here?

The technology you see in China exists,

it's working, and it can do the same thing here.

Right now, our sort of regulatory legislative action just isn't there.

We don't have protections to say it couldn't happen.

Young people growing up in America today

are pretty used to being surveilled by their phones

and their Facebooks and their Snapchats, and the rest.

We might have different constitutional protections,

but it's still unsettled,

and it's an open question about how we react,

and I hope we start asking those questions to react now.